Dish with dragons amid lotus scrolls, Ming dynasty, Zhengde mark and period AD 1506–21, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration. Height: 41 millimetres, Diameter: 194 millimetres. Sir Percival David Foundation of Art, PDF A651 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum

Shallow porcelain dish. Underglaze blue with two five-clawed dragons among floral scrolls on the exterior and on inside cavetto. Five-clawed dragon among floral scrolls in a roundel on the interior. Cloud motif band on foot. There is an inscription on the base. 

In the Chenghua era, officials closely supervised production of court orders at Jingdezhen. Twenty years later, the number of kilns producing porcelain for the court had increased dramatically and standards had declined because non-official kilns also supplied the court. This design, of five-clawed dragons amid dense lotus scroll, is based on an early fifteenth century pattern. Potters making the Zhengde examples used poorer quality raw materials, the potting was less sophisticated and the underglaze design not so well drawn.